Speech by DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP Pudu Branch, Kuala Lumpur, on Saturday, 23rd Oct. 1971 before starting his inspection tour of the Bukit Nanas Constituency which will continue tomorrow.
DAP MPs and SAs will not join so-called overseas fact-finding visits, which are in fact pleasure trips at public expense.
This constituency, Bukit Nanas constituency, is the second of my visit in my series of national tour of all DAP parliamentary and state constituencies to check on the constituency performance of DAP Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen, and to seek public views as to how DAP constituency service can be further improved.
The DAP is a serious political movement, with a serious political objective. All DAP Members of Parliament and State Assemblymen will discharge their duties to the constituency, party and country diligently and conscientiously.
The Alliance State Government is using public funds to send State Assemblymen to foreign countries on so-called study trips. Actually, they are just pleasure trips for State Assemblymen, paid out from the taxpayers’ expense.
This is improper and immoral, particularly at a time when the people are facing very difficult times, with the big drop in the price of rubber, huge unemployment, continued rise in cost of living, and increasing hardships and sufferings of the people.
Instead of setting an example of thrift and economy, the Alliance State Governments are leading the way in wasting public funds on the flimsiest reasons,
The Alliance State Governments must be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of the people to send State Assemblymen to foreign countries, on pleasure trips.
The DAP calls on the Alliance State Governments to put a halt to these extravagant waste of public funds.
The Johore State Government had sent groups of State Assemblymen abroad, and is still doing so. The Perak State Government is doing the same.
DAP State Assemblymen in both Johore and Perak have been invited to go on such free trips overseas.
DAP State Assemblymen, however, will not go on such so-called fact-finding visits, which are in fact pleasure trips for State Assemblymen at public expense.
State Assemblymen are elected not to go on overseas pleasure trips at public expense, but to find ways to alleviate the sufferings and hardships of the people.
Instead of wasting such money on pleasure trips for State Assemblymen, such money will be more profitably used as scholarships for poor children.
I mention the DAP Assemblymen’s refusal to join these so-called fact-finding trips overseas at public expense to show the seriousness of DAP MPs and State Assemblymen in their fight to improve the lot of the people.